by Annie Jane

Created on: January 29, 2009

In short, animal testing, or animal experimentation, is the act of using a non-human animal to do studies in scientific experiments. When people think of animal testing labs, they think of white rats in cages; however this is not the case. Not only are rats subjected to testing, but also dogs, cats, primates, bunnies, and many more. In America, drug, cosmetic, and hygienic companies use animals to test their products on to test the how it is absorbed into the blood stream, how quickly it is exited from the body, how it is broken down, and the toxicity of the chemicals.

Lately in America, due to the many petitions and animal right movements, animal testing has been minimized as much as possible, using as few as about 1.5 million a year. This still seems like a lot, but compared to Britain's rising four million animals a year, America seems to be taking animal rights more seriously. Many, but not all, companies in America try their hardest to use as few animals as possible. Two species are usually used in testing (example: one non-rodent animal, and one rodent animal) because the species my react differently.

Over the world average of eleven million animals used in animal testing a year, forty five percent are used for medical and veterinarian practices, and thirty five percent are used for biomedical research.

Although many Americans feel animal testing is ethnically wrong, manufacturing companies have to take many things into consideration. As far as drugs go, a company cannot send out a drug that will treat cancer without knowing exactly how the chemicals will affect mammal bodies. For all they know, it could cause a disease that would wipe out the whole human race.

Many scientists are trying to find alternatives to animal testing, and efforts are beginning to show, in a good way. Cosmetic companies will drop chemicals into animal's eyes to test their effect and how long it will take to make the animal go blind. However, there is good news! There are now several alternatives to test eye damage in cosmetic items than to test them on animals. These methods are the bovine corneal opacity and permeability (BCOP) assay, and the isolated chicken eye (ICE) assay.

These methods are a huge success for many animal activists in America. This is the start to many other non-animal testing options.

With the rates in animal testing keep decreasing as more and more alternatives to animal testing keep rising in numbers, we might possibly have a future of no animal testing.

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